The next book to be featured on the Zoe Ball Radio 2 Book Club will be The Storm We Made, the exciting debut novel by Vanessa Chan. The book was released on 4 January and Vanessa’s full interview with Zoe is on BBC Sounds.
We have an exclusive extract available for you to read, and we also have an exciting giveaway for one lucky reading group! We also have some brilliant discussion questions for groups to use (includes some spoilers).
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The Storm We Made
Her decision changed history. Now her family must survive it.
British Malaya, 1930s
Discontented housewife Cecily is seduced by Japanese general Fujiwara and the glorious future he is promising for ‘independent’ Malaya, free from British colonialism. As she becomes further embedded as his own personal spy, she unwittingly alters the fate of her country by welcoming in a punishing form of dictatorship under the Japanese in WWII.
Japanese-occupied Malaya, 1945
Cecily and her family are barely surviving. Her children, Jujube, Abel and Jasmin, are surrounded by threat, and look to their mother to keep them safe. But she can’t tell them about the part she played in the war – and she doesn’t know how to protect them.
Can Cecily face up to her past to save her children? Or is it already too late…?
Selection panel review
The book was selected with the help of a panel of library staff from across the UK. Our readers loved The Storm We Made – here are some of their comments:
“Vanessa Chan movingly explores the hidden history of Malaya during the Second World War through the lives of one family. The reader is taken between the relative affluence of British-occupied Malaya in 1935 to the time immediately before its liberation from the Japanese ten years later. This novel is nuanced and thought-provoking and explores how individual actions and choices can have far-reaching consequences. Chan’s sense of place is also well-done and brings Bintang to life. There is plenty for readers’ groups to discuss, including the research that was likely involved.”
“This novel explores the lives of four members of a family as they endure the occupation of Malaya (under the British and Japanese from the 1930s to 1945). It revolves mostly around the mother Cecily who makes the fateful decision to spy for Japan which has repercussions and why she believes it’s her fault when bad things start to happen to her family. Its focus on Malaya during these years was revealing in its conflicting tides between casting off colonialism and Japan’s propaganda for an “Asia for Asians” and what happened in that period. The ending is really emotional”
“Cecily is a disillusioned housewife and mother when Japan invades Malaysia but the involvement with a Japanese General, to which this leads her, has far-reaching consequences. This was easily my favourite read. Beautifully and powerfully written, it detailed an aspect of the Second World War with which I was not familiar. Cecily’s belief that life for her family will improve under Japanese rule and her obsession with the General – Fujiwara – are convincingly portrayed. Cecily’s loved ones are sympathetically drawn and I cared very much for her children and the uncertainty of their future. I even felt sorry for the husband that she so resented at times. The author creates a horrific picture of the life suffered by the young prisoners of war and the terrible destruction it wreaks upon Cecily’s son. Cutting between the mid-1930s and the end of the war, the narrative builds a tense sense of inevitability. As a reader, you begin to realise that Cecily’s decisions can lead to nothing good whilst understanding why she makes them. Class and cultural divisions are highlighted and a spotlight shone on the relationships and attitudes between the ruling British, the invading Japanese and the native population, giving much to discuss. The attitude of the British soldiers as they liberate the prisoner of war camp is particularly shocking. An emotive, original novel that engages from the outset with strong, vibrant characters and a profound story. I definitely recommend this.”
“This book was fascinating. It covered a part of history that I hadn’t previously known a lot about, and left me curious to know more. A lot of the events that are described in the book are awful, many characters personally facing the horrors of war, and potential in humanity for depravity. But the book itself was surprisingly easy to read. I found it very easy to just keep going, continuing through the story, the pacing and prose were very balanced. Having a few different character viewpoints allowed for a variety of motivations to be revealed. I enjoy in a book being able to understand why characters are doing things, even if I don’t like the actions themselves. The psychology behind seemingly bad decisions is often far more complex, and I like being able to understand a little more of who people are in this way. I think that there are a lot of very interesting discussions that could be had off the back of this novel.”
About the author
Vanessa Chan is a Malaysian author. Her debut novel, The Storm We Made, has been sold in twenty languages and territories worldwide, and will publish in the US and UK in January 2024. Vanessa’s other work has been published in Electric Lit, Kenyon Review, and more. She is now based mostly in Brooklyn.
A word from Vanessa
“It was ten days before Christmas when I heard The Storm We Made was chosen for the Radio 2 Book Club and what an incredible Christmas present this was! I was so thrilled, I shot right out of my chair and whooped; truly a dream come true for a first-time author like me. The Storm We Made is about the unlikeliest of spies, Cecily Alcantara, a discontented housewife in 1930s British Malaya who becomes a spy and unwittingly ushers in the worst most violent war her country has ever seen, in the form of the Japanese Occupation during WWII.
My writing journey would not have been possible without libraries. My hometown library in Malaysia was my first babysitter, and I would spend hours in there when my parents worked or ran errands, reading about the women of history – queens, spies, artists, nurses, writers and more – whose spirits buoyed me as I wrote about Cecily and her family and the impact of her decisions on world history. Libraries and books opened the world to me, growing up in small, sweltering Malaysia. I’m so grateful to Radio 2 Book Club and The Reading Agency for bringing books to readers, some of whom are little girls like me, looking to books to see the world.
Get involved
Tune in to the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show to hear the live feature on Tuesday 16 January. You can also listen to the full-length interview on BBC Sounds.
Have you read The Storm We Made? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter using #R2BookClub and you can also follow Vanessa.
Planning to buy The Storm We Made for your group? Buy books from Hive or from Bookshop.org and support The Reading Agency and local bookshops at no extra cost to you.
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